ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicInclusive Leadership in Multicultural Teams: Innovations, Challenges and SolutionsView all 8 articles
Unions and Employment of Migrant Workers in China: A Causal Analysis Using the Treatment Effect Model
Provisionally accepted
- Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Migrant workers in China often experience employment instability due to limited labor protection and restricted access to formal institutions, which undermines both job security and social integration. Although trade unions are expected to support workers’employment, their role remains debated in the Chinese context.Using pooled data from the China General Social Survey (2010–2021), this study examines the effect of union participation on migrant workers’employment by applying a treatment effect model.The results indicate that union membership is significantly associated with a higher likelihood of non-agricultural employment.Mechanism analyses suggest that unions improve employment outcomes by enhancing labor rights protection, promoting formal contracts, and expanding social insurance coverage, thereby reducing perceived employment uncertainty and strengthening labor market attachment.These findings suggest that union participation is associated with improved employment outcomes, potentially through institutional and psychological pathways. However, it is important to acknowledge that unions may also serve as markers of pre-existing formalized employment environments.
Keywords: Employment effect, migrant workers, Socio-economic integration, treatment effect model, Union participation
Received: 18 Dec 2025; Accepted: 27 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Guo, Yang and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mingchen Yang
Hao Sun
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.